My regular readers will recall that I’ve been a proponent of the tube synth concept ever since I first tripped over a reference to the Phattytron a few years back. Though the PT-1 was out of production by the time I learned about it, out of its ashes, and the fecund mind of Eric Barbour, rose the TM series. I started by purchasing the TM-1 Waveshaper/Ring Modulator a while ago, and finally rounded out the collection with the TM-2 Filter and TM-3 Oscillator modules. Here’s what they sound like when you patch them all together (and then run them through a CS-15 for the benefit of an amp EG).

Of course, a “rounded out” collection of Metasonix modules does not a Phattytron make. I’m still missing some important components — envelope generators, LFOs and the like. The eventual plan is to create a hybrid solid state/tube modular with the balance of the components being provided by MOTM, and then house the whole thing in the hollowed-out shell of an old Scully flatbed half-track. Currently I’m augmenting the built-in MIDI/CV converter with an MPU-101 patched into the TM-2 for velocity controlled filtering, and then feeding the whole mess into the external input of Logic’s ES2 soft synth. I got the MIDIJACK option because the TM-2 runs on Hz/V, but I still needed to call on the Volt/8ve MPU for key velocity conversion and pitch correction via pitchbend. So it’s already starting to look pretty modular around here.

In related and completely non-digital news, the TM-3 adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the Wurlitzer when inserted between the latter and my solid state Crate combo. Well, it’s either je ne sais quoi or soft clipping.